From Afar
by templeg
Summary: A  mostly  one-sided love story about how much the slightest glimpse of beauty and hope can mean to a boy like Severus Snape. Canon-feasible  I think  version of how young Snape fell for Lily. Continuity  dateswise  ties in with The Unmagical One.


From Afar

_November 3__rd__ 1968_

Severus stops running and leans back against a wall. He doesn't know exactly where he is- it's cleaner than his street, the houses more inviting, none of the windows smashed or boarded up. It is obvious he has blundered into a completely different neighborhood. Most importantly, he is far away from Spinner's End, far enough away that he cannot hear his mother screaming. The windows stream light. He feels conspicuous, although there are few people about on this chilly evening. The passers-by cast sideways glances at him, him and his overlarge coat, the grime that seems to be embedded permanently into his skin like a layer of decay. Two teenage girls come towards him, giggling arm-in-arm, the lamplight glinting off jewellery and high-heeled patent shoes. As they catch sight of him, their giggles peter out and they both avert their gazes, staring at the pavement. Neither has said anything to the other by the time they are out of earshot.

He looks down at his hands, the skin rawly red in places and grey in most others, the nails bitten and black. He isn't surprised he has that effect on people. He sticks them into his pockets, thrusting them down until he can feel the holes in the bottom, and gazes around him at the lit-up windows, the flowerboxes on the windowsills. Despite the cold, he wishes that he could stay here forever, invisible. Just to watch.

He hears footsteps and flinches backwards into the wall as a family approaches. The mother turns behind her as she walks to take her daughter's hand, and Severus feels a fist of longing tighten around his throat. He looks down at his shoes, determined not to be seen.

The first to pass by him is a girl wrapped in a heavy wool coat. Her pale eyes flicker over him and then away, her thin lips tightening. Almost subconsciously, she shies away from him, pulling her coat around her. Her parents both flinch slightly when they see him and the mother tightens her grip around the younger daughter's hand.

She is dragging her feet a little, and as she passes she looks up and meets his eye.

It is only for a second, but Severus drinks her in like a man dying of thirst. Her hair is escaping from its Alice band, red-gold strands extending into the air like wisps of light. Her skin is pale, freckled, except for the tip of her nose, which is pink from the cold. But it is her eyes he will cling to for nights of hiding his head under his pillow to block out the screaming. For the first time he can remember, Severus looks into eyes filled with pity, and it is this he will remember most, this that will fill his fitful bouts of dreams, so much so that it is not until much later he will remember that they were green.

_December 19__th__ 1968_

Severus crouches in the snow and shivers. The bush he is hiding behind is bare and skeletal, vulnerable-looking, and poor camouflage. If his father finds him- but he is not sure he would bother to come looking for him, and certainly not this far from Spinner's End. Not when he still has Severus' mother to take out his anger on. Not for the first time in his life, Severus thanks all the powers he has never considered believing in that it is someone else, that at least for now, it isn't him. It is a blind rush of gratefulness, with nothing as complicated as guilt to sour it. He doesn't want his mother to hurt, but nothing can override his instinct to escape pain. In less animal moments, he vows that some day this will change.

He digs bitten nails into the hard ground, as if to scrabble into the earth like a rat. The soil is black and frozen, and he does not get very far. The tail of his huge overcoat is sopping wet from the snow, as is the seat of his trousers, and he shivers and clings to the spiny branches of the bush. If he squeezes the short sharp twig stubs of hard enough, he thinks, perhaps the pain will feel like warmth.

The gate of the playground creaks and Severus flinches unconsciously, anticipating the pain he tries so hard to avoid. But the crunching sounds of footsteps in the snow are pattering, and the figure he sees through the branches is too small. He peers around the bush, clinging to it so that he doesn't slip and reveal his presence. She is so wrapped in winter clothes that at first he does not recognise her- pale skin covered by woollen coat and gloves and scarf, most of her face concealed beneath an enormous woolly hat. It is obvious someone has cared enough to make sure she will be warm no matter what, and there it is again, that fist around his throat. But she is hampered by her warm clothes, and as she runs she strips off her hat, yanking it off by the bobble and throwing it in the air. Giggling wildly, she does the same to the earmuffs she was wearing underneath, and Severus' stomach turns over as he sees her hair fluttering, like fire against the snow, and recognises the green eyes.

The gate creaks again and another girl pelts through, puffing and out of breath. She, too, is warmly wrapped, but she makes no effort to discard her wrappings.

'Mummy's going to be cross.'

Guilt flickers across the redheaded girl's face. She stares down at the snow. 'It was itchy. Tuney, don't-'

Severus feels instant dislike for the pale-eyed girl who has made her so unhappy. He watches as Tuney picks up the hat and walks towards her, holding it out like an executioner's block. The younger girl looks stubborn, a gleam in her sparkling green eyes. At the last minute, when the hat is just about to descend onto her coppery head, she leaps backwards, throwing her arms in the air. The hat follows the arc of her arms, ripping itself out of Tuney's arms and leaping into the air. It spins unnaturally in the air, and comes down only because the redheaded one slowly lowers her arms with the air of a conductor at the end of a piece. Severus feels a swoop of elation. She isn't just a Muggle. They have something in common. It is not impossible; she is not so far away.

'_Lily! _Lily, you _mustn't_, you _can't_!'

'I…'

'I'm telling Mummy!'

Tuney is near tears. She turns and runs, tripping in her haste, making the gate screech as she flees. Severus barely sees her go. He is watching her sister, who stoops to pick up the hat with a deeply uneasy expression. She glances about her as she turns it over in her hands. The name glows above her head in his mind. A flower, a perfect fit. A lily.

_28__th__ December 1968, 3__rd__ January 1969, 10__th__ January 1969, 19__th__ January 1969, 25__th__ January 1969, 2__nd__ February 1969, 9__th__ February 1969…_

Severus watches Lily and her magic. He becomes very good at staying perfectly still and ignoring for hours the ache of his bones. From behind his bush, he falls in love. And he plans the day when he will finally show his face.

_3__rd__ August 1969_

He knows he shouldn't be back here.

It is dark now, although the air is still warm. He crouches behind the bush, head down, although he knows there is no point; it is no longer a hiding place. He flinches at the memory of earlier that afternoon, of how badly it went wrong. She will never look at him with anything but disgust again. He thought she was different. He knows now that no-one will ever be different.

'Hello?'

The voice comes out of the darkness, making him scrabble backwards, shielding himself just in case. After a second or two his breathing slows, the panic ebbing away to be replaced with elation. He crawls back towards the bush. Her green eyes glow through the leaves.

'Are you there? The boy from before?'

He swallows, hard. 'Yes.'

'Um. I'm Lily. I'm sorry I ran away like that. What's your name?'

'Severus.' She looks at him oddly, as though she thinks he might be joking or lying. She has obviously never heard the name before.

'I shouldn't be here.' She is speaking in a whisper, wary and unsure. She meets his eyes, searching for something. He can see that she doesn't yet trust him. Why would she?

He smiles. 'Neither should I.'

And then, when she doesn't say anything: 'It's OK. I won't hurt you.'

It is what he would want to hear from any stranger, never at home unless the possibility of pain has been ruled out. But it clearly means something quite different to her, because she stiffens and backs away.

'Why did you say that? Why would you hurt me?'

'I _wouldn't_. That's what I _said_.'

A silence falls between them. Severus feels like it will go on forever. He knows that staring at her will only make things worse, but he cannot help himself. She chews on her bottom lip, watching him.

'So why did you come back?' he blurts. Heat rushes into his face, and he is thankful for the cool dark.

She says nothing. Severus feels painfully stupid. He is messing it up _again_, even after she gave him this second chance, and he doesn't know what he's doing wrong.

'I wanted to know if… Is it really true?' Her whisper is barely audible now.

'What?'

'What you… what you said. About what I do. That I'm… a _witch_.'

Severus stands and walks around the bush to crouch beside her. Lily is pale and scared-looking, and shies away when he sits down, but he is reckless in his happiness. If he can make her understand, make her accept it… they can be magical together.

'_Yes_.' He grabs her wrists in a moment of sheer folly, hardly noticing how she jumps at his touch. 'And I'm a wizard, like I said. We're magic, you and me. We're not like everyone else.'

She is drinking in his every word. 'Magic?'

He nods with all the solemnity he can muster. 'And when we're old enough, there's a special school for people like us. To learn magic.'

Her face lights up. Severus is spurred on. 'You'll get a wand, and you learn proper magic, powerful stuff, real spells and things. It's in a great big castle, too. There are ghosts and everything.'

She shakes her head. 'Ghosts aren't real.'

He smiles at her. For the first time in his life, he feels important. 'You didn't think magic was, either.'

Lily starts to laugh. She tries to muffle it with the sleeve of her coat, but the sound escapes, disbelieving and full of joy. 'What else? What else is real?'

'What do you mean?'

'Things from stories. Are they all real? Mermaids, and, and unicorns, and golden geese?'

'Mermaids are. They have them in the lake. Unicorns too, but they're rare I think. I've never heard of the other thing.'

Lily is laughing openly, giddy with happiness. She reels off a list, and he nods at each, watching her smile grow wider and wider. 'Centaurs? Fairies? Dragons? Um… goblins?' She gives a little hiccup, between a laugh and a gasp. 'Is this really truly real?'

'Really truly real.' He puts enough stress on each word that it sounds like a pact. A promise.

'I'm a _witch_.' She says it slowly, trying out the sound. 'I'm going to go and learn _magic_, at a…magic school?'

'Hogwarts. It's called Hogwarts.'

She snorts, nearly choking on her laughter. _'What?_'

'Hogwarts.' says Severus. 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'


End file.
